Colin Powell

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.

Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.

Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.

You don't know what you can get away with until you try.

The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve.Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. Animportant attribute in successful people is their impatience with negativethinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates willchange. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want youto stay where they are. Friends that don't help you climb will want you tocrawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those thatdon't increase you will eventually decrease you.Consider this:Never receive counsel from unproductive people. Never discuss your problemswith someone incapable of contributing to the solution, because those whonever succeed themselves are always first to tell you how. Not everyone hasa right to speak into your life. You are certain to get the worst of thebargain when you exchange ideas with the wrong person. Don't follow anyonewho's not going anywhere.With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it. Be carefulwhere you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life. Wise is theperson who fortifies his life with the right friendships. If you run withwolves, you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, youwill learn how to soar to great heights."A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by thekind of friends he chooses."The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with whom youclosely associate - for the good and the bad.Note: Be not mistaken. This is applicable to family as well as friends.Yes...do love, appreciate and be thankful for your family, for they willalways be your family no matter what. Just know that they are human firstand though they are family to you, they may be a friend to someone else andwill fit somewhere in the criteria above."In Prosperity Our Friends Know Us. In Adversity We Know Our friends.""Never make someone a priority when you are only an option for them.""If you are going to achieve excellence in big things,you develop the habit in little matters.Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.."..

There are no secrets to success: don__ waste time looking for them. Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty to those for whom you work, and persistence.

What you're seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they're directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.

Get mad, then get over it.

It isn't enough just to scream at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. We need our political system to start reflect this anger back into, 'How do we fix it? How do we get the economy going again?'

When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you've got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I'm not sure any country, either the United States or I don't hear of anyone else, who's willing to take on that responsibility.

We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us.

In terms of the legal matter of creating a contract between two people that's called marriage, and allowing them to live together with the protection of law, it seems to me is the way we should be moving in this country.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced - the just demands of peace and security will be met - or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.